


Impact

by Viscariafields



Series: Leandra Hawke [13]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Head trauma, Hurt/Comfort, UST, injury fic, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 23:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20608847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viscariafields/pseuds/Viscariafields
Summary: It was a lucky blow that took him down. Mathematically, with all the fighting they did, with all the blows he blocked, dodged, and averted, there was a chance that one would hit him. In fact, with the frequency Hawke brought them into battle, many blows had hit him through the years, and thus the chances that one would strike somewhere vital grew with the bloodthirst of the city.So Fenris was certain that it was luck that brought the club to the back of his head, not distraction or a failing of his technique or form. This was little comfort as the cobblestone came to greet him.~~Between Act II and III, Fenris gets injured and Hawke has to deal with her feelings about it.





	Impact

It was a lucky blow that took him down. Mathematically, with all the fighting they did, with all the blows he blocked, dodged, and averted, there was a chance that one would hit him. In fact, with the frequency Hawke brought them into battle, many blows had hit him through the years, and thus the chances that one would strike somewhere vital grew with the bloodthirst of the city.

So Fenris was certain that it was luck that brought the club to the back of his head, not distraction or a failing of his technique or form. This was little comfort as the cobblestone came to greet him. 

He could hear Hawke shouting, screaming really, his name, other things, the sounds blended together as his vision failed him. She needed help. He tried to get up, but he no longer knew where up was. A boot connected with his chest, flipping him over, and Fenris took his leave from consciousness.

The stars in the sky had disappeared. They were there for a moment, then gone again. There was noise-- yelling? Sobbing. Hawke. He couldn't get up. She needed help, and he couldn't get up. 

Two Hawkes blinked into his field of vision,and he couldn’t focus his eyes on either of them. Couldn’t make out what they were saying, either. Maybe if only one spoke at a time. He opened his mouth to tell them that, and they poured a potion down his throat.

He found himself on his feet, but only one Hawke was holding him. The other would have come in useful. Which one had been screaming? “Are you hurt?” he tried to ask her, but the words kept coming out wrong. She was crying. Or maybe laughing. He bent over to vomit, and he never received his answer.

~

Hawke twirled a dagger in her hand while watching Fenris. Every so often he woke, more or less, tried to do something stupid like stand up, and she was forced to relive the same conversation again. When she’d brought him here, sometime yesterday, or maybe the day before now, Anders had poured enough magic into him that he’d had to break into his stash of lyrium. Now he said it was up to the Maker if Fenris recovered. That, and Hawke’s willingness to shove a potion down his throat every time he woke. 

He was stirring now. Time to live out the script. “Try not to move, Fenris.” 

He stilled his hands, and she watched as his lips formed the next line. “Are you—”

“I’m not injured," she interrupted with a sigh, "You are. Don’t move.”

_ I can’t see, _ he would say next. Or maybe, _ My eyes… _ Once he had surprised her with, _ The stars have gone out again. _That had been intriguing. 

“I can’t see.” 

"The light was hurting your eyes," she said quietly. "So we covered them for now. Has the ringing in your ears improved? Is it easier to understand me?”

"Yes." 

With the top half of his face covered in bandages, it was even harder to read him than usual. Impossible to know if he was in pain. He was probably in pain. She knew if she gave him another potion, it would help, but he would fall back to sleep. She selfishly wanted him awake. Selfishly wanted to know he could be awake, and responsive, and talk, and listen. Say something new this time, anything. Prove to her he would get the rest of his mind back by the end of this. 

“You’re not injured?” he asked again. 

She almost laughed, but then suddenly there were tears in her eyes. Not a laugh. She sighed deeply to force her breaths to behave. “I promise you, I’m not.” She put a hand on his, and he gripped it hard, as if to test her assertion. Then he relaxed, but held her still. Normally, at this point in the conversation, he either tried to get up again, resetting the whole thing, or he asked where they were. This time she had her own question. “Can you tell me why you keep asking if I'm hurt?”

“I asked you already?”

“About fifteen times now by my count. Could be more, but you were slurring pretty badly for a while, there.” Slurring was barely the word for it. She wasn’t even sure what language he had been trying for. 

"You're not hurt," he confirmed. And that made sixteen.

"I'm not hurt, Fenris." 

“I heard you screaming. I couldn’t get to you. I was worried.”

The air left her in a bitter laugh. "You heard me scream, so you keep thinking I'm injured." She dropped his hand and stood up, pacing around the room. This man. This man had the audacity to take a blow like that to the head and worry about her afterward. her eyes dropped to the red ribbon still wrapped around his wrist after all this time, faded with wear and weathered around the edges. She never understood why he put it on. She never understood why he didn't take it off. She pressed her hands to her face. 

“If I’m going to have the same conversation twenty times over, I might as well tell you the truth one of those times.”

She sat down on her chair again next to his cot, this time resting her hand on his cheek. “Fenris, I wasn’t screaming because I was in trouble. I was screaming because I had just seen the man I love get bludgeoned to death.”

Hawke had thought the part of her capable of loving had died when her mother was murdered. She went through the motions of caring, of friendship, of life. Routine that was comfortable and occasionally even enjoyable, and that was where she left it for two years. She had nothing to lose until Fenris took a blow that no normal person would ever get up from, and she felt herself screaming-- screaming at him, at the brigands, and at the world for daring to try to take one more thing from her. Her love had been dormant, not dead, she realized, with a hot pain in her chest that burned her lungs. Over a day watching him cling to life, and she knew her heart had never left her bedroom that night when he stood in front of her fireplace and told her he didn’t want it. 

“Who died?” he asked. 

Her hand curled around his jaw, and it ached when he leaned his face into her hand. She swept a thumb over his cheek. Couldn’t comprehend it, and he definitely wouldn’t remember it. "No one. How's the pain?"

He didn’t respond, and she knew it was time. 

"Drink this." 

She held the vial to his lips, sat back in her chair, and waited for the conversation to begin again. 

~~

This time when Fenris opened his eyes, instead of darkness he saw a vaguely familiar wall, followed by a very familiar dwarf.

“Hawke’s not injured,” Varric said.

“I know," he responded, furrowing his brow, "I am.”

“Huh. Well, now that you seemed to have wrapped your broken skull around that fact, you might actually be on the mend.” 

“I am in her room,” Fenris stated. He hated this room. Hated the colors, hated the fireplace, mostly hated the four poster bed he was lying in. Hated his memories from here. “Where is she?”

“I convinced her, after two days, to wash the blood and stink off. Bandits’ blood, not hers,” he assured Fenris, “Well, probably some of it was yours, too. I told her that it was unlikely you’d wake up during the half hour it took to bathe herself." He rubbed his chin and glared at Fenris with mock annoyance. "You’ve made a liar out of me.”

“I’m honored to be your first. We’ll have to mark the occasion.” Fenris sat up in the bed, Hawke’s bed, and swung his feet over the side. The room swam around him, and he abandoned his plan of standing up, gripping the sides of the mattress for balance. 

“Easy there, elf. If you hit your head again falling out of bed, Hawke will murder me herself.” 

“Noted.”

The door opened, and Hawke backed into the room, her hands full of steaming mugs. “Do you know I think I fell asleep in the bath? Seems like the minute I got in the water was cold and Orana was shaking me.” 

Her feet stopped when she saw Fenris, her mouth dropping open for a second before she said, “I’m not injured.” 

“I’m gladdened to hear it,” he said, trying not to grimace. He must have asked too many times for her to respond like this. _ At least fifteen_, a voice in his head told him. He held a hand up to where the blow had landed. Barely even a bump now, but Varric has said days had passed. Hadn’t he lost enough memories in his life? 

“How’s the pain?” Hawke asked, setting the mugs down. 

“Endurable. Who attacked us?” 

He could tell by her expression that he had asked this question before, too. “Smugglers. Nobody of note. Well, especially not anymore.” 

She came closer, and he realized she looked terrible. Even fresh from the bath, she looked drawn, pale skin contrasting with the dark circles under her eyes. If he looked half as bad as she did, it must have been a close call. He had a feeling he looked considerably worse. 

He stood up, wobbling on his disused legs as the world lurched again. Reaching out to grab a bed post, he instead found Hawke, bracing him by the elbow. 

“Careful. You’ll be dizzy for a bit.” 

He steadied himself on her shoulder. Now that he was up, he wasn’t certain what his goal had been in getting out of bed. It was hard to breathe, this close to Hawke in this room. She had held his hand these past few days, like a lifeline in the darkness. And he remembered-- he had felt sad for her, holding her hand. Something she had said. “Did someone fall in the battle?” 

Her eyes widened and she dropped his arm, but she recovered quickly with a smile. “You mean other than all those smugglers I offed while you were napping?” 

“Yes.” 

“No, I’m afraid it was just you and me and we both made it. There’s always next time. I'll go see about getting supper in here soon, if you want to take it by the fire. You must be famished." 

Hawke exited, her footsteps reaching a speed that almost matched her words, and Fenris was left with Varric and his raised eyebrow. The dwarf hopped off his chair and came over to lend him a shoulder to lean on. 

“Which one of us were you hoping for?" 

“Pardon?”

“To have met an untimely demise down at the docks? My money’s on Blondie.” 

"No, I…" he trailed off. _ I watched the man I love die. _ That’s what she said, wasn’t it? 

Varric deposited him on the sofa, leaving only to retrieve Hawke’s abandoned mug of tea and shove it into Fenris’s hands. "You scared her this time. It was… she didn’t think you were getting up again." 

Fenris blinked and felt the lump on his head again. _ She meant me _. It was too big a thought to hold in his head. He could feel it slipping away. "It was an unlucky blow." 

"As if you even remember it." Fenris bristled. His memory had been through enough, had cracked and fragmented enough. The world added insult to injury, for him to lose yet more time like this, and insult again for the dwarf to mock him for it. Varric continued, "She had me collecting every stray helmet in the city while Anders tried to keep your brains on the inside." 

"You needn't have bothered." 

"I didn't do it for you." The sudden sharpness of his words drew Fenris’s gaze. He tried to blink Varric back into focus, but his eyes were not heeding him. Varric grimaced. “Well, I did it for you a little.” 

Fenris stared at the fire. His head hurt. He hated this fireplace. “How did I get here?” 

“To the sofa? Or to the mansion?”

“Here,” he grumbled with a wave of his hand, “Hawke’s room.” 

“Same way you got to the clinic. Hawke carried you, and you were helpful and hindering by turns. Less puke this time, so I hear.” 

He must have been awake, but he didn’t remember. The way Varric hesitated to answer the question, the flash of pity in his eyes, Fenris must have asked him this already. He looked at the mug in his hands. Half gone, and he didn’t remember drinking any of it. “Venhedis.” He restrained himself before he smashed it into the blasted fireplace. 

“Elf, you’re on the mend. You’ll get your memory back. Maybe not these last few days, or even these last fifteen minutes, but nothing happened worth remembering. You were in one bed, then another. Hawke sat next to you embroidering a new scarf she’ll never give to Isabela. I convinced her you’d be happier convalescing here than with Anders. That’s about it.” 

They sat in silence, Fenris glaring at the fireplace. It didn't matter that nothing had happened. It mattered that once again he was ignorant of the goings on of his own life. He tried to latch on to a familiar detail, pulling at it gently until he had a fact he could place in a context. “It’s for Bethany.” 

“What?”

“The scarf. She’s making it for Bethany. She no longer believes Isabela is coming back.” 

“Oh. That’s… bleak. I preferred her blind optimism.” 

He didn’t remember her telling him that, but he knew it was true. She must have said it over the past few days. This feeling of lost time, of empty spaces in his own history was familiar and agonizing. He’d lost all of his memories before. There was nothing that said it couldn’t happen again. He could lose everything of Kirkwall, everything he built of himself. He felt like the walls were closing in. He could find a new way to lose Hawke. Everything that they had been could be taken away from him.

“Where is she now?” he asked just as Orana walked in with food for them. 

“Serrah Hawke is taking her supper in the kitchen,” Orana said, putting down their plates before sweeping out of the room. Fenris couldn’t be sure if he knew that already. He’d feel better if she were here even if it was in this room, next to this fireplace. Now that it could be stripped from him forever, he found he didn't hate it quite as much.

~~

Hawke sat in the kitchen as Orana prepared supper, and continued sitting there as Orana served it, retrieved it, and cleaned it up. Realizing she was still in love with Fenris had been pretty terrible while he was still unconscious and sleeping in her bed for the first time. It had only taken head trauma to get him there. Being in love with him was devastating now that he was awake and talking. And grabbing her by the shoulder. And rubbing a thumb over her collar bone while wobbling slightly on his feet and staring at her with those intense if slightly unfocused eyes. She never should have listened to Varric about moving him here. What did she care and if he preferred to wake in the clinic or in Hightown? 

"Why him?" She moaned to no one in particular. 

“It was his turn.” 

Hawke turned her head to to focus one weary eye on Varric. 

“Well first there was you with the Arishok. Then Merrill and that nasty spider bite. And I don’t know if you realized, but I twisted my ankle pretty badly last time we went to Sundermount.”

Hawke put her face back in her arms and set to ignoring Varric. 

“Come on, Hawke. He’s fine. He’s walking, sort of. Talking. Remembers about thirty percent of what I say, which frankly is more than Isabela ever did. Unless--” he took a deep breath. “That isn’t what you meant.” 

It felt too stupid to say out loud. She wasn’t just holding a torch for a man who didn’t want her, she had gone ahead and burned her whole house down and was sitting in the wreckage saying, “this is fine.” 

Varric sat down next to her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I did warn you about the spikes.” 

She huffed, lifting her head. “You know, if I had set out to woo Merrill, I bet we could be married right now, living in the alienage. Tight quarters, but who even notices when you’re in love?”

“Why wouldn’t you just move her up here with you?”

“Maker’s breath, why is your plan so much better than mine?” 

“It’s not. They are both terrible. You didn’t woo Merrill because you didn’t fall in love with her. And you’re not the one Merrill is pining after, either.” 

“It’s not my fault neither one of us has any taste.” 

Varric just chuckled. Orana set two more mugs of tea down before them, and Hawke watched the steam twirl and twist in its escape. 

“He is going to get better, right?” 

“Definitely. He’s miles apart from where he was yesterday. Tomorrow? He’ll be winning the hard-earned coin off the city guard again playing cards.” 

She rested her head on Varric’s shoulder and hoped that he was right. When she opened her eyes again, Orana had disappeared and so had Hawke’s tea. Varric noticed her stirring and put down the book that had appeared in his hand. 

“Might be time to check on your patient,” he said, just as a clatter and a thump came from upstairs. Hawke headed for her room, ready to see what stupid thing Fenris had attempted now, but Varric turned the other direction. 

“You’re not coming to help?” she called. 

“I think you’ve got a handle on it. Besides, I was here to make sure you were taking care of yourself. You’ve bathed, eaten, even got a nap or two. My work is done.” 

Hawke entered her room to find Fenris on his hands and knees, glaring at the floor. 

“What part of ‘you’ll probably be dizzy for a bit’ did you not understand?”

“It was not a defect in my comprehension,” he spat. 

“Well, at least we know your elocution hasn’t suffered. Let’s get you up, you oaf.” She got his arm around her shoulders and pulled him up straight, so he was resting just on his knees. Even like this he wobbled, threatening to pull her over with him, so she readjusted, her arm around his back pulling him flush to her side. 

“Oaf? You once called me the most graceful man you knew.” 

Hawke snorted, trying to ignore how warm his hand felt gripping her shoulder. “Yes, well I say a lot of things, Fenris, and I’d think by now you would have stopped listening. New information has just come to light, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an oaf.” She got him up to his feet. “Anyway, if you’re really all that offended, there’s good odds you won’t remember what I’ve called you tomorrow.”

“Don’t--” he wrenched around in her grasp to face her. “Do not say that.” His eyes seemed to be searching her face, studying her. She felt a wave of self-consciousness under the intense scrutiny, not to mention the proximity, of his examination. His hand cupped her cheek, and Hawke swallowed hard, hearing the strain in his voice as he said, “I do not want to forget anything else.” 

Her eyes drifted to his lips, so she closed them, refusing to give air to the tiny spark in her that just wouldn’t be put out. It was physically painful to remove his hand from her cheek. But she allowed herself to look at their entwined fingers for a few stolen moments before gently dumping him onto her bed. 

"Get settled and I'll read you something," she said, heading over to the bookshelf. She pretended to study the selection carefully in order to give herself time to take a breath. It wasn't just that Fenris didn't love her the way she needed him to, but that he couldn't. He'd made that clear. She had to remember it. It wasn’t fair to ask him for something he couldn’t give. She listened to him shifting and rearranging the covers on her bed and she cursed herself.

"You're going to be fine, you know," she called behind her, parroting Varric's words from earlier, "It just takes a little time. But you're miles better than you were yesterday." 

A grunt was his only reply. 

She took her place in her chair and opened the book she had grabbed at random. _ The Collected Sermons of Frederic des Cognets. _ "Remind me to teach you how to read Orlesian names sometime," she said, "they are absolute rubbish." 

"I'm sorry," he said, "for allowing myself to get hit. For getting injured like this. For--" 

"Don't be ridiculous,” she cut in. She did not want any apologies from him. Not tonight. “It was an unlucky blow." 

She dragged her chair closer to the head of the bed to better use the candle light, and set to reading. 

~~

Fenris woke up in the dark again, though after a moment he realized this was because the fire had gone out. There was a weight across his chest, and as awareness came back into his body, he realized Hawke was draped across him, most of her still sitting in her chair next to the bed. He had his arm wrapped around her, holding her there, his fingers tangled in her hair. 

His heart started to race. Her words came back to him again. _ The man I love… _ She loved him, still, somehow, and he remembered it. Her feelings had not changed, had not withered away and died like they should have. Hadn't he left her here in this very room two years ago? Unable to stay through even one night, to hold her like he was doing now. He had proved himself unworthy of this and of her, and still she loved him. 

He wanted to hold on to this memory. Her weight on him, unfamiliar and yet just as he’d imagined. The soft sigh of her breathing, the smell of her hair. All the memories he had in this room, all the memories he’d _ lost _in this room-- Venhedis, if he must be plagued with memories here, let it be this one. Let him take the feeling of her sleeping against him to his grave. Let it warm him on all the cold nights ahead. Let him remember. 

When he woke again in the morning, he was alone. Her chair had been moved back to its place by the fire. He got to his feet, steady now. Barely needed the hand on the bedpost, and when he removed it, the world stayed flat, level. Hawke would fuss, but he could go home. 

He should go home. Now that he was better, there was no reason to stay here. Let Hawke have her bed back. But he lingered. Walked out to her balcony and saw her sitting below, back at her embroidery. He watched her pull the needle through, adding stitch after stitch, then cursing, pulling them all out, rethreading, starting again. She pushed her hair out of her face, and her eyes landed on him. 

“Get away from the stairs!” she shouted, tossing her embroidery behind her as she lunged across the room and took the steps two at a time. “Maker’s breath, you’ll be the death of me,” she panted, grabbing his arm and leading him away. “What if you had fallen?”

“I assure you, I am well.” 

“Hah.” She ran a hand through her hair as her shoulders slumped. “Sure. Right.” She leaned heavily against the wall. 

“I think you are in more danger of falling than I am. Have you slept?”

“Here and there,” she said, eyes on the floor. “Though apparently whenever I leave you, you take your life in your hands. Too dangerous to take a nap.” 

“Your bed is free for use now. If I promise to avoid all stairs and sharp objects, will you sleep?” 

“I think if you put me on a flat surface of any kind, I would have no choice.” 

Fenris chuckled. “Sleep then. I will remain at your side.” 

He meant it. Hawke loved him, and while he may have failed before, he could try to be worthy of her now. He stayed three more days, being allowed to brave the stairs alone after two. He did not wake again with Hawke wrapped around him, but he did not forget. He remembered the weight of her, her warmth, how easily she fit into place with him, and he dared to hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> Brought to you by my own vague memories of having a concussion (years ago). One incredibly common side effect? Being grumpy af. Do not recommend.
> 
> As a neuroscientist, I have to admit that Fenris's version of amnesia in this fic is not terribly accurate. HOWEVER he has amnesia in general, so maybe his head doesn't work like real people. I mean, maybe TBI goes differently for elves, too.


End file.
